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French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are set to meet Sunday to deepen economic and security ties on the remote North Atlantic archipelago of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. The meeting comes days after Carney embraced the prospect of Canada becoming the European Union's first associate member, saying closer ties with the continent would ensure no country could control Canada's markets or undermine its sovereignty. US President Donald Trump's tariffs, demands for economic concessions and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have pushed Ottawa to reduce its dependence on its neighbour and pursue deeper economic, security and political relationships with Europe. "This is an important moment," Macron said upon arriving Saturday in the French territory off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon is home to about 5,800 people. Talks "will allow us to strengthen our bilateral economic ties and defence relationship," Macron ...
French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday he had asked his government to prepare a plan to protect critical infrastructure, including sensitive defence industry sites, against drone attacks and cyberattacks amid what he described as an intensifying Russian hybrid threat. "In recent weeks, the threat -- particularly the Russian hybrid threat -- facing Europeans and France has intensified," Macron told reporters at the Elysee Palace after meeting political party leaders. Macron specifically cited drone attacks and cyberattacks against critical infrastructure. The European Union describes Russian hybrid activities as including sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation and interference in democratic processes. Macron warned that the attacks would not go unanswered and accused Moscow of trying to intimidate Europeans into weakening their support for Ukraine. "We are not intimidated," he said, arguing that Europe's present and future security was at stake in Ukraine. Macron also said he
India and France are stepping up cooperation in the space sector, with companies from the two countries signing three new agreements covering satellite launches, space surveillance and microsatellite technology, according to an official announcement. The agreements, announced at the International Space Summit in Paris, include contracts worth more than 5 million euros between France's Safran Space and India's Dhruva Space for technologies to be used in India's planned 52-satellite space-surveillance constellation. The new agreements come against the backdrop of more than five decades of space cooperation between India and France, built around the partnership between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and France's space agency CNES. The first edition of the International Space Summit is being held from September 9-10, bringing together governments, companies, space agencies and scientists. The summit featured 51 announcements representing about 20 billion euros in contrac
France is stepping up its education outreach in India with a four-city tour featuring more than 50 French institutions, as the two countries seek to deepen cooperation in higher education, innovation and artificial intelligence, an official French government agency said. The outreach comes amid a sharp rise in Indian enrolment in French higher education, with the number of students growing to 9,100 in 2024-25, according to a statement by Campus France on Friday. Campus France is the official French government agency that promotes higher education abroad and guides international students through the university admission and visa application processes. Operating under the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Higher Education, it serves as the mandatory first step for anyone applying to study in France. The Choose France Tour will be held in Mumbai on October 11, Pune on October 13, New Delhi on October 15 and Bengaluru on October 17. October's four-city tour assumes significance
An uncontained wildfire four times the size of Paris threatened to surge again in southwest France on Wednesday -- as three firefighters died in Greece and crews across southern Europe confronted a punishing mix of heat, drought and strong winds. The deaths on Crete brought a fatal new dimension to a wildfire emergency stretching from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain. In France's Gironde region, the country's biggest blaze had not spread during a calm night, authorities said. But as temperatures approached 40 degrees Celsius Wednesday afternoon and winds strengthened, the reprieve threatened to be short-lived. The landscape was so combustible that investigators believe routine brush-clearing work near a high-voltage line may have sparked the inferno, even though the work appeared to comply with regulations. At the command centre in Lege, ...
Massive forest fires forced the evacuation of some 200,000 people in southwestern France and central Spain, with residents fleeing towns near Madrid and Bordeaux as the flames raged out of control. Firefighters and authorities in both European countries on Friday were caught off guard by the virulence of the fires, which were fuelled by high temperatures and the long-term effects of climate change. Firefighters in Spain admitted the fires were so fast and violent that they could not be tackled head on. Some people even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic area on France's Atlantic coast. Some 141,000 fled homes in the Gironde and Landes departments in France, the French interior ministry said. In central Spain, 60,000 were forced from their homes, according to the Spanish interior ministry. Dozens of French firefighters were injured, authorities said, but no deaths were reported in either country despite the scenes of panic as townsfolk fled by car and police went d